How to Best Import/Export/Render Videos From After Effects to Vegas

Richard-Bril wrote on 11/28/2020, 8:09 PM

I've been using VP18 for several months now and have come too far to consider switching or even trying other editing software (Premiere having always been the lure), but something that keeps coming up is the possible need to use After Effects for a few finishing touches here and there. In particular StoryBlocks now offers AE templates which would make things a bit easier by adding some of the semi pre-made effects to projects without too much work.

While I'm relatively happy with FXBlue's Chroma Key Pro plugin which I've been using in VP18, today I installed a trial of AE and the KeyLight plugin might just be better (without knowing how to use KeyLight properly I was able to have a better key around frizzy hair right on my first try).

I should say that currently I'm using a Samsung Note 9 for all my filming. I film in 4K between 30fps and 60fps. The resulting files are MP4. I then render each file (using a script from JN) to convert to CFR as my phone's VFR files produce some occasional jitter in VP.

I downloaded a special effects AE template from StoryBlocks and slapped it on a video file and had some fun with it. It was the first time I was using AE, so I didn't know what my options were to bring the AE project (or rendered video file) over to VP for further editing. I watched a dozen YouTube videos and scanned these threads for a proper explanation of how to do this, but I couldn't find the right answer.

  • Since VP has the ability to import a Premiere Pro project, I thought I'd try saving (or exporting) my AE project as a PremierePro project. And though VP opened it, the video file was the only thing in tact. The effects template with effects that I sprinkled on the video were not there...only a single .jpg came in with the project.
  • So I figured I would need to render out the AE project to a video format and import that into my VP project. Is that the best way to do it?
  • My original MP4 file was 13 seconds long and 139MB. When rendering in AE to AVI using one of the lower settings (downgrading from 2160 to 1080 and choosing an inferior quality setting), the resulting AVI file came out to 1.9GB. I used the same settings and did a MOV render, the file size was 1.4GB. The reason I downgraded the 4K file to 1080 is because it was taking too long to render my 13 second clip with the "best" settings (or lossless)..and the file size (after 10 minutes of rendering was over 6GB).
  • After some more Googling I found that if I install the Adobe Media Generator (not sure if that's the right name), I can render to MP4, which I suppose would produce a much smaller file size, but would that be advisable to do?--and then take that back into VP to do final editing on?

Any suggestions on the proper workflow or order of doing things would be much appreciated. Of course I'm looking for a good quality solution...but one that might not take a 100MB MP4 and turn it into a 5GB file after running it through AE.

Thanks in advance,
Richard

Comments

Musicvid wrote on 11/28/2020, 9:16 PM

Are you asking for the best intermediate codec from AE to Vegas? There's so much detail in your post it's hard to tell, but if that's the question, ProRes should work well.

Richard-Bril wrote on 11/29/2020, 4:12 AM

My question is simply how to transfer a project, or more specifically, a video clip back and forth from Vegas to AE and back again.

If I start editing a project in VP and say I have 160 video clips that make up my project and I want to edit 50 of those clips in AE, how do I get those files back and forth? I managed to import an MP4 into AE quite easily, but once a composition has been completed and it needs to be taken back to VP for final editing, what is the best way to do this?

You mentioned ProRes, is that the QuickTime file format? Under the Format Options there are 6 different Apple ProRes options. When I render to ProRes a 100MB MP4 file turns into a 2GB file, is that the norm?

Thanks

Musicvid wrote on 11/29/2020, 10:46 AM

Bilateral project support between AE and Vegas is minimal, as you have experienced. Reason: Magix and Adobe are competitors. If you don't get what you want with XML export, It isn't likely to happen.

Regarding "which" ProRes intermediate format you choose depends on your mp4 source; if it is 8 bit 4:2:0, use ProRes 8 bit 4:2:0. If it is 4:2:2, use ProRes 4:2:2.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/

And yes, the intermediate will be many times the size of the compressed interframe source. It's the nature of encoding. This should be of relatively little concern, since the intermediate is disposable once the deed is done.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/got-questions-consult-the-tutorials-first-please--120282/

rs170a wrote on 11/29/2020, 12:07 PM

FWIW, any time I did a project in AE (usually short animations, under 2 minutes), I'd render the result out as a series of PNG images (thus saving the alpha channel if needed) and bring it into Vegas as an image sequence. Quick and easy.

Mike

Musicvid wrote on 11/29/2020, 1:18 PM

Thanks, Mike!

Wish you'd drop in here more often.

rs170a wrote on 11/29/2020, 3:39 PM

@Musicvid, thanks for the kind comment. My use of Vegas since I retired over 4 years ago is limited to doing some family video work and that's about it. I stopped using it at Pro 14 so I'm lost with a lot of the new features. When things like this come up I'm ok answering them as it's not related to any specific version of Vegas, just my experience doing something similar. I do read the forum daily here as well as elsewhere just to keep my hand in. Happy editing 😀

Mike

Musicvid wrote on 11/29/2020, 4:03 PM

@rs170a

Well, Mike, truth be known I'm still on VP14 and a regular contributor. And I am constantly wiping doo from my face thinking I can project my experience to version 18.

Perhaps if you started contributing more, and I posted less, this would be a better place. Image Sequence is an elegant solution to this question, and even allows for spatial domain processing via Photoshop Actions, which I already do a lot. Most gracious of Holidays.